[Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)
Volker Gast
volker.gast at uni-jena.de
Wed Dec 15 11:17:21 UTC 2021
If you need some type of theoretical framework for this study, you could
use Jonathan Culpeper's work on impoliteness, see for instance this
paper on 'impoliteness strategies':
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300633947_Impoliteness_Strategies
Culpeper distinguishes eleven types of insults in Section 8 on
'impoliteness triggers' (referring to his own earlier work from 2011).
He extended Brown/Levinston-style politeness theory to impoliteness --
communicative actions intended to damage someone's (positive) face.
I doubt that languages have grammaticalized ways of expressing, for
instance, positive impoliteness, in the same way as they encode positive
politeness (e.g. in the V/T-forms of European languages). Perhaps you
could consider the use of T-forms in a V-context as impolite (and
potentially offensive). I wouldn't regard the types of structures found
in 'personalized negative vocatives' (Culpeper's term)
"grammaticalized". I think they rather belong in the lexicon, but that's
obviously a matter of definition.
Volker
On 15.12.21 11:39, Riccardo Giomi wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Thank you very much for a nice set of data and references. This will
> be extremely useful.
>
> I will reply to some of you privately, asking for further
> comments/data/references. In the mean time, any further feedback is of
> course more than welcome!
>
> @Maia & Paolo: I agree with Paolo that /pezzo di / espèce de/ are not
> grammaticalized, although not for the reason he mentions. After all
> the working hypothesis is precisely that languages can have
> grammaticalized means of marking a speech act as an insult, so,
> according to this hypothesis, the fact that /pezzo di X/ never occurs
> with positively connotated epithets does not entail that the
> construction is not grammaticalized.
> A different type of argument for regarding these as lexical
> constructions is the fact that premodifying adjectives must agree with
> /pezzo /and not with the epithet (and I guess the same goes for French
> /espèce/), cf. /brutt_o_ pezzo di cretina/, as opposed to */brutt_a_
> pezzo di cretina/. This suggests that /pezzo /is the head of the
> construction; if it had been a grammaticalized element, I suppose
> agreement would have been with the epithet. At any rate, these nouns
> are not really reserved for marking a speech act as an insult -- they
> can also occur in other types of speech act, e.g. declarative /Quel
> pezzo di X mi ha rubato la bici /(roughly, 'That dirty X stole my bike').
>
> Best wishes to all,
> Riccardo
>
> Paolo Ramat <paoram at unipv.it <mailto:paoram at unipv.it>> escreveu no dia
> quarta, 15/12/2021 à(s) 11:03:
>
> In Italian too /pezzo di X /'espèce de X' , as in /pezzo di idiota
> /and the very insulting, derogating/ (/but very much used)/pezzo
> di merda, /appears just in derogating expressions: you will never
> hear /*pezzo di genio, /nor/*pezzo di benefattore ! /This is, I
> think, an argument for not considering the construct /'pezzo di X
> ' /as belonging to the grammar (Maia).
>
> Paolo
>
> Prof. Dr. Paolo Ramat
> Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente
> 'Academia Europaea'
> 'Societas Linguistica Europaea', Honorary Member
> Università di Pavia (retired)
> Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia) (retired)
>
> piazzetta Arduino 11 - I 27100 Pavia
> ##39 0382 27027
> 347 044 98 44
>
>
> Il giorno mer 15 dic 2021 alle ore 07:48 Nigel Vincent
> <nigel.vincent at manchester.ac.uk
> <mailto:nigel.vincent at manchester.ac.uk>> ha scritto:
>
> Maia is of course right that the English 'you X' is a way of
> insulting people but that depends on X being an insult. The
> same construction can be used to praise: 'you genius', 'you
> darling', etc.
> Nigel
>
>
> Professor Nigel Vincent, FBA MAE
> Professor Emeritus of General & Romance Linguistics
> The University of Manchester
>
> Linguistics & English Language
> School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
> The University of Manchester
>
>
>
> https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/nigel-vincent(f973a991-8ece-453e-abc5-3ca198c869dc).html
> <https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/nigel-vincent(f973a991-8ece-453e-abc5-3ca198c869dc).html>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf
> of Maia Ponsonnet <maia.ponsonnet at uwa.edu.au
> <mailto:maia.ponsonnet at uwa.edu.au>>
> *Sent:* 15 December 2021 1:54 AM
> *To:* Jussi Ylikoski <jussi.ylikoski at oulu.fi
> <mailto:jussi.ylikoski at oulu.fi>>;
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)
> Hello,
>
> Doesn't the English "you idiot" (you [insult]) qualify as an
> example?
> Copula-free adposition is not standard in English predication,
> and it seems largely limited to second person sing and
> derogatory adjectives?
> French has "espèce d'idiot" - not sure whether it qualifies as
> grammatical or lexical.
> Cheers, Maïa
>
> Dr Maïa Ponsonnet
> Senior Lecturer, Discipline of Linguistics
>
> Graduate Research Coordinator, School of Social Sciences
>
> Building M257, Room 2.36
>
> The University of Western Australia
> 35 Stirling Hwy, Perth, WA (6009), Australia
> P. +61 (0) 8 6488 2870 - M. +61 (0) 468 571 030
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf
> of Jussi Ylikoski <jussi.ylikoski at oulu.fi
> <mailto:jussi.ylikoski at oulu.fi>>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 15 December 2021 6:09 AM
> *To:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)
> Dear Riccardo and all,
>
> D’Avis and Meibauer's paper "Du Idiot! Din idiot!
> Pseudo-vocative constructions and insults in German (and
> Swedish)"
> (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110304176.189/html
> <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.degruyter.com%2Fdocument%2Fdoi%2F10.1515%2F9783110304176.189%2Fhtml&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7Ccc94c4625b3c491e5c2808d9bf4e9dc5%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751168309659999%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=Qm0dhs6L0wUoC0ozwJeshZnGlztNFYs2tB0%2FwjH91yo%3D&reserved=0>)
> might be of interest; see also the thirty studies referring to
> this paper according to Google Scholar:
> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=9645899484374998601
> <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fcites%3D9645899484374998601&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7Ccc94c4625b3c491e5c2808d9bf4e9dc5%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751168309659999%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=SiEIXLU6h58y3oPt6JDnSMiqxAD9CDEmDdvrhfbB%2F64%3D&reserved=0>
> (and so forth).
>
> Best regards,
>
> Jussi
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Frá:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> fyrir hönd
> Sebastian Nordhoff <sebastian.nordhoff at glottotopia.de
> <mailto:sebastian.nordhoff at glottotopia.de>>
> *Sent:* þriðjudagur, 14. desember 2021 22:50
> *Til:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
> *Efni:* Re: [Lingtyp] Grammatical marking of insults (?)
> Dear Riccardo,
> Sinhala has several levels of politeness in imperatives
> (marked by
> affixes), one of which would be rendered as "Do X, you $#!%
> !!!". I once
> nearly got beaten up when underestimating the impact that the
> use of
> this form can have. I can look up the reference if you want to.
> Best wishes
> Sebastian
>
> On 12/14/21 19:49, Riccardo Giomi wrote:
> > Dear all,
> >
> > A student of mine would like to investigate the linguistic
> coding of
> > insults across languages. She is particularly interested in
> finding out
> > whether languages can have dedicated (uses of) grammatical
> > forms/constructions for this specific purpose. The best
> example I could
> > come up with so far is the use of the Portuguese third
> person reflexive
> > possessive adjective (determiner in Brazilian Portuguese)
> /seu/sua/ with
> > epithets which are meant as insults. An example would be
> >
> > /Cala=te, seu burro!/
> > shut.up.IMP.2.SG <http://shut.up.IMP.2.SG>
> <http://shut.up.IMP.2.SG
> <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fshut.up.imp.2.sg%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7Ccc94c4625b3c491e5c2808d9bf4e9dc5%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751168309659999%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=Wsd38z3IS7%2FaqTyJkGPUkncKamWvN1IwGXTun%2F7NpTI%3D&reserved=0>>=2.SG.OBJ
> 3.SG.REFL.POSS
> > donkey.M.SG <http://donkey.M.SG> <http://donkey.M.SG
> <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdonkey.m.sg%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cmaia.ponsonnet%40uwa.edu.au%7Ccc94c4625b3c491e5c2808d9bf4e9dc5%7C05894af0cb2846d8871674cdb46e2226%7C0%7C0%7C637751168309659999%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=DAnllkzoCwHEhKOA07WYqh25abAsY2i7%2Fp4%2Bmj134VM%3D&reserved=0>>
> > 'Shut up, you idiot!'
> >
> > (Where, funnily enough, the third person of the
> adjective/determiner is
> > presumably the polite form!) This is an interesting case, I
> think,
> > because as far as I can see you never use /seu/sua /in 'plain'
> > vocatives, nor with terms of endearment, nor, for that
> matter, with NPs
> > which are not used as invocations.
> >
> > I am wondering whether anyone is aware of a language which
> has some
> > grammaticalized form or construction that can be used in
> this specific
> > way. Note that I am not interested in, say, abusive pronouns or
> > honorifics or general expressions of the speaker's
> disappointment
> > ('frustrative' markers) but only in grammaticalized means of
> marking the
> > speech act as an insult.
> >
> > Many thanks in advance and best wishes to all,
> > Riccardo
> >
> > --
> > Riccardo Giomi, Ph.D.
> > University of Liège
> > Département de langues modernes : linguistique, littérature
> et traduction
> > Research group /Linguistique contrastive et typologie des
> langues/
> > F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral fellow (CR - FC 43095)
> > //
> >
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